1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the field of score meters in a virtual game, combined with user-information from a social network.
2. Technical Background
The invention is intended for use on a device such as a computer or a smartphone. Those skilled in this art will understand that this it is not limited to these devices, but can function on any device capable of incorporating games where this feature could be used.
A social network game is a type of online game played through social networks, typically featuring multiplayer and asynchronous gameplay mechanics. Social network games are most often implemented as browser games, but can also be implemented on other platforms such as mobile devices. They are amongst the most popular games played in the world, with several such products having tens of millions of players.
While they share many aspects of traditional video games, social network games often employ additional ones that make them distinct. Historically, they are largely intended to be casual games.
Early social networking on the World Wide Web began in the form of general online communities. Many of these early communities focused on bringing people together to interact with each other through chat rooms, encouraging users to share personal information and ideas on personal webpages, created with easy-to-use publishing tools and free or inexpensive webspace. Some communities took a different approach by simply having users link to each other via email addresses. In the late 1990s, user profiles became a central feature of social networking sites, allowing users to compile lists of “friends” and search for other users with similar interests.
New social networking methods were developed by the end of the 1990s, and many sites began to develop more advanced features for users to find and manage friends. This newer generation of social networking sites began to flourish with the emergence of SixDegrees.com in 1997, followed by Makeoutclub in 2000, Hub Culture and Friendster in 2002, and soon became part of the Internet mainstream. Friendster was followed by MySpace and LinkedIn a year later. Facebook, launched in 2004, became the largest social networking site in the world in early 2009.